Sales automation isn’t bound to just CRM. It requires a suite of solutions. Sellers rotate through an endless loop of activities of ever day — emails, calls, meetings, proposals, etc. Even old-school aspects like note-taking are essential to follow up, staying organized and sharing information within your team.
Ideally, your sales solutions work together. And that’s the beauty of Dynamics 365 for Sales and Microsoft 365/Office 365 — tight integration that keeps sellers focused and productive. There are 3 key integration points Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365/Office 365 – what I call the no-brainer integrations that keep sellers productive and efficient across all their day-to-day activities:
- 1. Outlook for email, calendar and tasks
- 2. SharePoint for document management
- 3. OneNote for note-taking and information sharing
Outlook
Let’s start with Outlook. Synching emails with CRM records is standard issue with many CRMs. But with the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook, you can do a whole lot more. In addition to merely syncing emails, you can create leads, contacts or account records. You can insert templates or attachments to emails. You can also schedule and track sales follow-ups right within Outlook. It works in the opposite direction as well. Let’s say you create an appointment or task within Dynamics; that task or appointment flows to Outlook, so nothing falls through the cracks.
SharePoint
SharePoint integration allows you to store, access and manage documents (or any digital asset really) through Dynamics 365. On top of that, you can associate those files with specific Dynamics records — Contacts, Accounts and so on. So let’s say I have a quote or a contract, I can quickly upload it to SharePoint with a few clicks. But I can still access it and revise it through CRM. It keeps documents organized with very little work. Another benefit of using SharePoint — storing files in SharePoint is less expensive than storing in Dynamics. That saves you money.
OneNote
OneNote has become a must-have for me. In the consulting game, the buying cycle can be two months to two years. You don’t know. There are typically lots of things like notes, requirements, Visio docs and so on. All this information needs to be documented, organized and shared with my team. Create and open your OneNote within the Dynamics 365 record. You can enter notes directly into OneNote. If you still use paper and pen and you’re lazy like me – hey – take a picture of your notes and insert that into OneNote. Other Dynamics users can access this OneNote at their convenience, or send them a link. Super simple.
Again, three no-brainer integrations that make your team, you sellers much more efficient and more productive. And you know what, turning on these integrations is easy. Now you may not have the permission to do that. So talk to your admin or us about how to start using these little beauties.
Integration to Microsoft Teams is in preview as of this post. Click here to learn more about it.
By Mark Abes, Vice President, Dyn365Pros, Microsoft Business Applications Partner, Dynamics 365 Reseller, San Diego, Southern California
